Overview

Wife of the Life of the Party: A Memoir by Lita Grey Chaplin, Jeffrey Vance

Wife of the Life of the Party is the memoir of the late Lita Grey Chaplin (1908-1995), the only one of Chaplin's wives to have written an account of life with Chaplin. Her memoir is an extraordinary Hollywood story of someone who was there from the very beginning. Born Lillita Louise MacMurray in Hollywood, she began her career at twelve with the Charlie Chaplin Film Company, when Chaplin selected her to appear with him as the flirting angel in The Kid. When she was fifteen, Chaplin signed her as the leading lady in The Gold Rush and changed her name to Lita Grey. She was forced to leave the production when, at the age of sixteen, she became pregnant with Chaplin's child. She married Chaplin in Empalme, Mexico in November 1924. The Chaplins stayed together for two years. Lita bore Chaplin two sons: Charles Chaplin, Jr. and Sydney Chaplin. In November 1926, after Lita discovered that Chaplin was having an affair with Merna Kennedy (Lita's best friend, whom she had persuaded Chaplin to hire as the leading lady in The Circus), Lita left Chaplin and filed for divorce. It was one of the first divorce cases to receive a public airing. The divorce complaint ran a staggering 42 pages and fed scandal with its revelations about the private life of Charles Chaplin. Lita's divorce settlement of $825,000 was the largest in American history at the time. Lita authorized the publication of another biography, My Life with Chaplin, in 1966. The book was mainly the creation of her co-author, Morton Cooper, who re-wrote her manuscript. Lita was never happy with the many inaccuracies and distortions of that book. Wife of the Life of the Party is not to be seen as a supplement to her early book, but rather Lita's own version of her life, told for the first time.

Product Details

About the Author

Lita Grey Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's second wife, was a film actress, singer, and author of two memoirs concerning her life with Charlie Chaplin. Jeffrey Vance (M.A., Boston University) assisted Lita Grey Chaplin in compiling her memoir.

Read an Excerpt

Lita Grey Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's second wife, was a film actress, singer, and author of two memoirs concerning her life with Charlie Chaplin. Jeffrey Vance (M.A., Boston University) assisted Lita Grey Chaplin in compiling her memoir.

First Chapter

Lita Grey Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's second wife, was a film actress, singer, and author of two memoirs concerning her life with Charlie Chaplin. Jeffrey Vance (M.A., Boston University) assisted Lita Grey Chaplin in compiling her memoir.

Table of Contents

Lita Grey Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's second wife, was a film actress, singer, and author of two memoirs concerning her life with Charlie Chaplin. Jeffrey Vance (M.A., Boston University) assisted Lita Grey Chaplin in compiling her memoir.

Reading Group Guide

Lita Grey Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's second wife, was a film actress, singer, and author of two memoirs concerning her life with Charlie Chaplin. Jeffrey Vance (M.A., Boston University) assisted Lita Grey Chaplin in compiling her memoir.

Interviews

Lita Grey Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's second wife, was a film actress, singer, and author of two memoirs concerning her life with Charlie Chaplin. Jeffrey Vance (M.A., Boston University) assisted Lita Grey Chaplin in compiling her memoir.

Recipe

Lita Grey Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's second wife, was a film actress, singer, and author of two memoirs concerning her life with Charlie Chaplin. Jeffrey Vance (M.A., Boston University) assisted Lita Grey Chaplin in compiling her memoir.

Editorial Reviews

Lita writes frankly, and from the perspective of many years, about their unlikely relationship...she also writes interestingly, and not scurrilously, about the social life of Hollywood in the 1920s...this memoir provides a vivid account of a relationship that was doomed from the start.

Classic Images

The 40 photographs include wonderful candids from The Kid and The Gold Rush.

Past Times

Lita Grey writes as she was in person, straight, shrewd, funny and charmingeven if you miss those dark eyes that were still as stunning in her eighties. She remembers and analyses the Chaplin marriage without rancour, almost objectively. Charlie may emerge very far from saintly, but he is not demonised. Looking back at what went wrong she concludes, with marvellous acuity, 'he did it to protect what he created.' Jeffrey Vance deserves great gratitude for encouraging her to record it all and for providing the necessary context.

David Robinson

Charlie Chaplin's bitter divorce from his second wife, Lita Grey, scandalized the Hollywood of the 1920s. In this second memoir, Grey presents the results of her 70 years of reflection on the divorce and on her lingering anger towards the star and her sense of being rejected by him. The memoir is intended to correct inaccuracies and embellishments that Grey felt existed in her first autobiography. Extensive appendices provide legal documents related to the divorce. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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